Riverside Bonfire

On Saturday June 23, I hosted a Riverside Bonfire & BBQ at my house. All told, 28 guests came. I knew some of these friends from Open Door, some from GTA, some from FCCC, some from LGT, some were friends-of-friends. Wow, I just realized had friends from all of my old and current churches there. Interesting.

About ten people arrived a little later in the evening, so for the first hour and a half most of us were on the lower deck talking and getting to know one another. Thanks to my brother's direction and help, I had prepared honey-burger patties by hand. Nina and Melissa volunteered for BBQ duties, so many thanks to them. It took us until after 7:30 to really have enough burgers cooked up so everyone was really hungry by then. Once everyone got a taste of those burgers, though, they decided that it was worth the wait. The subtle honey flavour and aftertaste was really nice.



The main event was supposed to be a large soccer game but few people wanted to join. As a result, my Little Brother and I were playing one on one for a while. Eventually Tara joined us, and then Grace and Alma and Rhea joined us as well to play guys against girls. Besides that, there was croquet and the swing and other minor activities. At one point, we found a large post with a big metal piece on the end which we proceeded to use as an oversided javelin. Due to the size of it, it was a bit of a caber toss as well. I think that I won that competition but I'll need to have someone confirm that.


There were plenty of burgers and after everyone had had their fill, we randomly hung out until it became dusk. I had a couple of guys volunteer to build the bonfire for us, which was helpful. It was a fairly large bonfire and everyone gradually moved down from the deck to the bonfire area at the bottom of the hill closer to the river. Due to the large slope, it was a little tricky to get down without having to walk all the way around the house to the groomed trail. Ashleigh came up with the novel idea of trying to go piggyback so we tried that maneuver for the first time ever and it was really easy to get down.


The weather was perfect for the evening. Clear skies to see the stars, no wind, few bugs. The night air was chilly enough that you wanted to sit by the fire but not cold enough to be bothersome. A simple sweater was enough for most people as we created a large semi circle around the fire. At one point, Alma disappeared and then came back with a whole bunch of marshmallows. Alma and Tara scoured the tree line for long and thin sticks and everyone enjoyed themselves.

And of course, I would be remiss if I forgot to mention the ongoing fireworks display. Thanks to Nick, we had some lengthy periods in which staccato explosions popped up repeatedly.

I was very busy for most of the evening hosting and taking care of the details. I was able to sit down for a minute or two once in a while just to say hi and any free time that I had besides that was devoted to my Little. Around the middle of the evening, a lot of people were still in my brother's apartment furiously playing Nintendo Wii. People had been in there to ooh and ahh over Abe and Melissa's two children, Ben and Chris.


At around 10:00 pm the fire was going nicely so I went in and ever-so-politely kicked everyone out, forcing them to join the great outdoors. I'm glad that I did that because everyone eventually had a lot of fun with the bonfire but initially there was plenty of whining about goose poop and bugs and the cold. Yeah, the great outdoors isn't exactly for everyone.

I finally managed to relax at around 11:00 pm for a half hour or so. I actually had the choice of spending that time cleaning up but I finally opted to end my hosting duties for a bit. (And I woke up at 6:30 the next morning to finish cleaning.) At around midnight, seven of us piled into my car, because my van was down being repaired, and I drove 'em all home. Nick and a couple of people waited around a bit longer for the fire to die down and they put it out before they left.

All told, it was a wonderful evening. Our guest of honour, Jason, was able to come even though he's leaving in just a day or two to work in the Dominican Republic for six months. I got to see Terry and Gina for the first time together since their recent marriage. I had plenty of newly-made friends that were able to come out and a few old friends joined that I had not seen in a while. Good times in the summer, good times.